Basketball was the sport du jour Wednesday, but during interviews at the ACC’s preseason media gathering, commissioner John Swofford applauded the freshly minted selection committee for college football’s playoff and again broadsided the NCAA for its untenable structure and incoherent rules enforcement.

Swofford and his colleagues at the other Football Bowl Subdivision conferences hand-picked the 13-member panel that will choose four playoff semifinalists starting next season. That group was formally unveiled Wednesday.

“You’ve got a mix of 10 who were coaches (or players) at one time, three Phi Beta Kappas I believe, (a) Rhodes Scholar,” Swofford said, “an excellent mix of people who coached the game, played the game, with a few people who would not fit into that category, but are highly respected, bring other experiences to the room and have had experience making decisions under duress if you will. Because that will almost certainly be the case.”

Decisions under duress? Gee, think former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice fits that bill?

Rice is the most polarizing committee member, at least for those afflicted by sexism or myopia. She’s clearly a fan – smart people have mentioned her as a possible future NFL commissioner – and accustomed to bringing strong-willed people to consensus.

Moreover, as someone who’s made a career out of writing about sports I haven’t played beyond the sandlots (football and baseball) and high school (basketball), I don’t believe, and am in no position to suggest, that all committee members be able to design a read option play on the greaseboard.

Swofford said there was “nothing magical” about 13, that the commissioners reached broad consensus on those individuals.

“What we were looking for was a real mix, and I think it’s a mix of all-stars,” Swofford said.

Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez, the Badgers’ former football coach; Lieutenant General Mike Gould, former superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy; Southern California AD and former Trojans and NFL quarterback Pat Haden; West Virginia AD and former NFL quarterback Oliver Luck; former NCAA administrator Tom Jernstedt; former USA Today sportswriter Steve Wieberg.

(No offense to Radakovich, but were Virginia Tech AD Jim Weaver healthy – he suffers from Parkinson’s disease – he’d have been an ideal ACC rep on the panel. He coached and played at Penn State.)

* Swofford also discussed several issues facing the NCAA, from cost-of-attendance scholarships to creating new positions to oversee college basketball and football, czars devoted to one sport 24/7/365.

“I think whatever we do needs to be education based,” he said of enhancing the value of scholarships. “Personally I'm not for paying players, but I'm for enhancing fundamentally the concept of the athletic grant made that we have now.

“I think there are also some things that we can do, without defining exactly what they are, but to enhance sort of the education, if you will, and the decision¿making of the elite athletes that obviously have professional potential in front of them. And I think we need to take a step back and see if we are handcuffing them rules¿wise too much. Should we be a little more liberal with an athlete's opportunity to evaluate where he or she is at this given point in time as it relates to professional career in sports?

“But I think we also have to on the other stand ¿¿ that's still a relatively small percentage of athletes that come through our programs at the highest levels that are going to have a career playing their sport, and if they do, the length of that career is not terribly long. That brings us back to the educational side of all of this, and is the reason that I feel like whatever we do needs to have an education base to it. …

“I guess I'm somewhere in the middle on some of this, because I'm not for paying players. I think that is a disaster waiting to happen if you ever went down that road, and I don't think we ever will go down that road. But I do feel like that there are ways that are tied to education that can enhance the scholarship itself, if we can find the right mix.

“We've done a really poor job I think of talking about the other funds that are available for needy student-athletes that are not part of the scholarship, that are over and above the scholarship. We need to do a better job of that. I still think that the opportunity to get a free education at the quality of schools ¿¿ just taking our league as an example, in our league, and play a sport that you love, is a pretty good deal.

“But at the same time, we can't live with our heads stuck in the sand. And that's why I need to really look at that, try to find the sweet spot if you will that enhances the experience for the athletes and their cost of education without losing track of the fact that it's college athletics. And I'm a big believer the collegiate model, understanding that it's not perfect by any means. But this is an opportunity to do that.”

Swofford is spot-on about the millions of dollars available through federal Pell Grants and the NCAA’s Special Assistance Fund, and he realizes only schools from the five power conferences can afford to enhance scholarships with a stipend or full cost of attendance.

That’s where restructuring comes in.

“We better take advantage of that opportunity,” Swofford said, “or we're going to continue to have problems as we move down the road. And it's a challenge, because of the size of the organization, because of the diverse institutions that are part of the membership; the differences in School A and School B and what they want out of their athletic program.

“But we've got to find a way to restructure, and I think we can. I'm confident that we can. … Things are not good right now from that standpoint, and what that tells me is that's an opportunity. When things aren't good, it's an opportunity to step back and be honest with ourselves and really try to make some changes that are significant and meaningful, and I think we can do that. I think we can do it under what I would call the 'big tent.'

“I don't know that we necessarily need to have another division to do that, but I do think that the equity conferences need a certain amount of autonomy in certain areas to deal with the issues that we deal with. And I'm confident we can get there over the next six to 12 months.”

Swofford endorsed the long-overdue concept of a national college basketball commissioner and a counterpart for football.

“I think you need people that are paying attention, particularly to football and basketball, on an every day on-going basis,” he said.

As he did at July’s ACC football media days, Swofford again expressed dismay at the NCAA’s handling of Miami’s infractions case, which has lingered for three years.

“We have to find a better way to handle enforcement,” he said. “Obviously that's not working well on a lot of different fronts.”

I can be reached at 247-4636 or by e-mail at dteel@dailypress.com. Follow me at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDP